


Kill Karen Page - Extras - Aftermath/Intention

by KastleInTheSky



Series: Kill Karen Page [13]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Epilogue, F/M, Post-Canon, Post-Season/Series 02, Prequel, Series Update
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-20
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-10-08 05:09:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10379223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KastleInTheSky/pseuds/KastleInTheSky
Summary: Hello everybody, it's been a loooongg time since I've updated this (because it's over), but I've had this last chapter on the back burner as an epilogue/sort of prequel to the main story, the latter of which may fill in a few details. Just thought maybe I should just put it out there! Enjoy! And if not just pretend it doesn't exist!





	

Karen had many a time awoken to the lazy orange sun poking over the East River in the early Manhattan morning. Usually, after she woke up, Karen liked to make herself a quick cup of coffee before her inevitable second on her way to work. She would thumb through the clothes in her closet and choose something to iron and run out of the house in after she brushed her teeth and combed through her hair. She would put on music as she did, her favorite songs, mostly oldies (in most recent weeks she had been singing along to an Elvis’ greatest hits compilation). When work was stressful, every now and then, she would find herself performing some light yoga in the living room to stretch her muscles and calm her nerves. It wasn’t a routine per say, but for Karen, the quiet lull of her mornings in Hell’s Kitchen were her favorite time of day, and she’d held a fervent appreciation for the serenity it provided often among the bustle of the rest of her life.

 

 

This was the first morning Karen had ever spent watching the lazy sunrise along the East River on a bench overlooking the water. She had regained herself, for the most part; she no longer felt numb, or racing, or both at once. She was there, wholly there on the park bench, watching the reflection of the sun grow along the surface of the river, by now used to the absence of her morning rituals. She was seated cross-legged on the cold metal, hands folded at her lap, most likely covered with some invisible gun residue. Her knuckles were dry white; it was unusually cold for an April morning, and though she was ill-prepared for it, she remained on the bench unphased. Karen took a deep, full breath, a curious sensation forming inside her chest. A Karen Page passed would have assumed the feeling was emptiness, a lack of feeling, a lack of sense, not knowing where to go, what to do, who to turn to. Karen believed she knew better now, that the feeling in her chest, the listless way the air flowed throughout her body, was not for the lack or presence of anything, really. It felt free, Karen thought. It felt loose, and she felt lighter, nimble. She saw it all still, everything, the same scenes that had been playing in her head on repeat for days, but they began to feel farther away, transforming themselves into memories.

 

She lifted her arms to stretch the muscles in her back, and felt the familiar stinging of the sore spot hastily stitched up by Frank. Frank. Frank, Frank. Karen thought. Carefully, she peered over her shoulder, tucking her cold fingers under her shirt to view the wound. She wasn't sure what a healing gunshot wound was supposed to look like, but she could tell the red inflamed skin enveloping the wound was bad. Karen had been way too reckless, she understood, and as the implications of that though reverberated through her, she stood. Karen was even less sure who would be willing to help her now. Not only did she smell like the trash she fell into, dirty and stained, but she problem wanted in some fashion by the police now. She sighed heavily, scanning the water in front of her and the pier to either side. Some eager joggers had passed by, none of which gave her a second glance. Karen felt secure for the moment. She knew someone who likely had more experience with pulsing red bullet wounds.

 

***

 

For the sight of a super-hero street-fight (she'd seen the Bulletin coin the phrase on the paper on the walk over), Metro General was back in running order. Patients sat coughing in the triage area. Staff argued with each other within earshot of everyone. There was a line again, three people away from the apathetic front desk worker. Karen knew exactly where she needed to go, however. She swerved left of the line and down a long corridor of rooms, and unsurprisingly enough, no one stopped her. From down the hall she could see the nurse’s station and, leaning over a supply cart scarfing down a half-sandwich was the woman she came to see. Claire looked up at her almost instinctively, and she opened her mouth widely, bits of bread visible from inside, as she dashed towards Karen. Claire grabbed Karen tightly by the arm and hurriedly wisked her into an unoccupied room, mouth full mumbling "no, no, no, no, no.”

 

Claire slammed the door shut once Karen was inside. She peeked out of the small curtain to be sure no one had seen them enter, and presumably no one had, as Claire quickly swallowed her food and turned towards Karen.

"You can NOT be here," Claire ordered. "You've got some set of balls showing up again, lady."

"Please," Karen whispered. "I, I didn't come for any trouble."

"You know there may have been a time where I could believe that some timid little blonde girl could walk here and not be looking for any trouble, but after you brought two goddam vigilantes and a psycho killer into this hospital and then WENT AFTER THEM, I'm not so sure about you.”

Karen clicked her tongue inside her mouth, feeling like she was supposed to be offended, supposed to wanna come back at her, but just not caring enough.

"Look," Karen said, dropping her sweatshirt off her shoulders and onto the linoleum.

"No 'look'," Claire called back. "You're just as unsafe to have around here as the other two. You've got no business here anymore.”

Karen chuckled. "Actually," she began. Karen turned towards Claire, pushing the sleeve of her shirt down the expose the wound. She didn't have to be looking at Claire to know it was bad.

"Oh shit," Claire gasped. "That is... I... okay, maybe you do. Just... just stay here, okay? Do not move!"

 

Claire opened the door and slinked out of the room, leaving Karen alone in the quiet. Scanning the room, Karen began to have flashbacks of her night here as well, more popping gunshots, the bullet that pierced her, her fear, her genuine concern for Frank that drove her out of the safety of the panic room. Karen paced towards the door and began to peer through the small curtained window. She did not see Claire, only a few other scattering nurses, toting charts and whispering to themselves. Down the hall, she watched as another room opened. A man stepped outside, middle-aged and otherwise unremarkable, followed by a middle aged woman, a young girl, and a younger boy, a small nuclear family. Karen watched the man scoop the young boy up into his arms, pat the woman and the girl on the back of their skulls as they walked down the hall. Faintly, Karen felt a smile.

 

Before she knew it Claire's face appeared in the window again, and Karen shot back startled.

"Come on," Claire began as she closed the door again and motioned Karen over towards one of the beds. "It doesn't... I don't know if it's infected. How long ago did this happen?"

Karen sat on the bed and slid her shirt up over her shoulder from the bottom. "That night," she answered.

"Jeez, lady," Claire sighed. "This has been like this for... what, four days?!"

"Almost five," Karen corrected.

"Who administered these?"

"Can you fix them or not?" Karen asked

 

Karen could see in a basket Claire had brought tools mostly for cleaning the wound, not for re-administering the stitched. Karen felt a cool swab of alcohol on her back as Claire began to work. After a few moments of these, of varying sensations of pain and soothing, Karen spoke.

"So," she began. "How exactly... how did you find out about..."

"Pulled him out of a dumpster," Claire answered. "Life hasn't been the same since," she added with a chuckle.

"You can say that again," said Karen, adding a chuckle of her own.

"There's a lot of them, more than you may think," Claire began.

"What do you mean?" Karen asked. "People like Matt?"

"Kind of," said Claire. "Not exactly like him, but good people who want to do good things, not just sit back and watch the world go to shit."

"You mean heroes?" Karen asked dryly.

"I guess so, yeah, heroes."

Karen scoffed. "I don't think I believe in heroes anymore."

"Why's that?" Claire asked

 

Karen wasn't necessarily sure why, exactly. She wanted to good in this world herself, but she a killer, not just a woman who killed someone once. Frank was a killer too. Frank was supposed to be the villain, but Karen knew his story too well to believe that. Did that make her a hero after all, though? There was too much blending; it was all very smudged. Karen figured Claire must've sensed the tension in her shoulder.

"Look," Claire started. "I've seen a lot of shit in this city, and I know you have too. Guess all I'm tryin' to say is that, if you believe in what you do, and I mean really believe, you feel it everywhere inside you that what you’re doing is right, it’s gonna help out a lot of good people, then it can’t be so bad.”

 

Karen smirked slightly, ashamed mostly.

“And what if you do those things for yourself?”

“Hey, “ Claire said, standing now from the bed. “I’m not a superhero. I’m just a nurse, I don’t have all the answers.”

Karen rose as well and tucked her arm inside of her shirt again.

“I cleaned it up, managed to make the redness and some of the swelling away. Like I said, it wasn’t infected,” Claire explained. “Whoever put those in at least knew what they were doing.”  
Karen looked up at Claire’s face. She looked a little older than she probably was; Karen attributed this to the wrickles forming around her eyes and the dark puffy circles that ran underneath them.

“You look tired,” Claire said. “Is it… is it safe, for you? Can you go home and get some rest”

“Not unless I wanna run into the cops who definitely are still swarming my apartment,” Karen answered.

“Then hey,” Claire whispered, leaning in closely to Karen and placing her hand sensitively on Karen’s good shoulder.

“If you need a place to stay, I know some good people up in Harlem who can take you in. Might do you some good to get out of Hell’s Kitchen.”

“To say the least,” Karen laughed. Claire joined her, and the two women stood silently. Claire finally reached for a small notepad in her front pocked, pulling a pen down as well and scribbling something down.

“Here,” she said, ripping the scrap of paper and handing it to Karen. “Here’s the number.”

Claire paced towards the front door. “I gotta get back to work… you do what you have to do. Okay, Karen?” Claire opened the door again and disappeared into the noise of the hospital. Karen looked down at the paper, the number scribbled on it, the name she didn’t care to comprehend. Claire was a nice girl, Karen thought. Karen had been a nice girl once too. She crumbled the paper in her hand, dropping it to the ground, and exited.

***

 

**_7 Days Earlier_ **

 

Something awoke Matt harshly that morning, so much so that he could almost convince himself that he had never been sleeping, that one moment he was dashing across the city in his other skin, the next he was here, in his sheets. He puffed his lungs mightily, in and out, trying to tame the adrenaline into steady consciousness, figure out what about this morning had startled him so. He listened, he concentrated. He could at first only smell his own sweat, hear his own heart beat unhinged. Then, from outside his windows he could smell the cool Spring air, the wafting aroma of the man cooking egg sandwiches in a metal cart down the block. He heard a man give his taxi driver directions and the hastening engine as they pulled away. Matt pressed his hand to the back of his wet head. He was trying to slow down, hush the sound, attempting to calm himself down. He focused on his heart, slowing the beat as he centered his breath. It worked perfectly until he realized that he could hear a second heartbeat coming from the couch in his living room.

 

Matt rose up from his bed as quickly and quietly as possible. How could he not have heard someone entering his apartment? He shuttered, and his senses began spiraling into overdrive; it had to be The Hand, he thought. It had to be Nobu’s men so disciplined that they had no hearts. Was one of them slipping up, or falling asleep? How else could he hear them now? Matt was readily upon the door. All of his equipment was kept out passed the living room. He would have been terribly out-gunned, he knew, not to mention there was no way to hide his face. Hiding just beyond the doorframe, Matt’s head raced with questions and ideas, until finally, a familiar voice called out to him, and he began to ask himself even more.

 

“Matt Murdock, huh?” said the gravelly voice of one Frank Castle. From the reverberation, Matt could tell Frank was seated on his living room sofa, facing straight at him, and Frank had probably seen everything as Matt awoke and began to creep over.

 

“You’re a lot smarter than I pegged you to be, I’ll tell ya’ that,” Frank continued with a chuckle. “Who’d pick the blind suit as the guy runnin’ around like a big red cat?”

 

 

Matt was furious. He dropped his guard, storming over to Frank and grabbed him forcefully by the shoulder. He attempted to lift him up and spin him around, and then he didn’t know what, but Frank shot up in response immediately, his heartbeat accelerating with the contact.

 

“You’ve got some nerve,” Matt growled deeply. He approached Frank from around the couch, shoving Frank when he finally stood in front of him.

 

“What the hell are doing here?” Matt asked, shoving Frank back again. On a third shove, Frank reached out and grabbed Matt’s arm, twisting it around Matt’s back. Matt howled with pain as Frank pushed him away, still with little wisps of laughter.

 

“Relax, Red,” Frank said. Matt’s spine chilled at the sound of Frank blending he and Daredevil. Frank was only the fifth person to discover his identity, and the fact that Matt hadn’t been the one to disclose that disturbed him deeply.

 

“I ain’t here to fight,” Frank continued. Matt swung around to approach Frank again, holding his aching arm.

 

“How did you get in here?!” Matt hissed. “How do you know about…”

 

“That’s the point…” Frank began and he stepped towards Matt confrontationally as well. “We… we gotta talk about something.”

 

 

Matt let out a patronizing laugh as he took a step back.

 

“Oh I assure you, Frank, whatever information you think you have for me, I want absolutely nothing to do with it. You and I may be a little alike, but I will NOT be involved with you for ANYTHING.”

 

“Oh yeah?” Frank challenged. He lifted his head back, the shadows from the morning sunlight cascading through the window behind him casting his face in darkness.

 

“Not even for Karen Page?”

 

Matt lunged forward and grabbed Frank by the collar, irate.

 

“What the hell did you do to Karen?!” Matt rushed Frank until he could hear the leather of Frank’s coat scraping against the brick walls. Somewhere inside him he knew Frank probably wouldn’t have done anything to harm Karen.

 

“I'm not the one after her!” Frank yelled. Frank wrestled Matt off of him, and admittedly, Matt had begun to calm down.

 

“What do you mean?” Matt panted. “What’s happened to Karen?”

 

 

For a moment Matt and Frank stood silent in the living room staring in each other’s direction. Matt was awaiting Frank’s reply, and from across the room, he could hear Frank’s entire body whirling with… something. He did not know with what yet. Frank’s heart raced erratically. His breathing was becoming labored. Matt was growing nervous; whatever Frank was about to tell him had him wound tightly. Frank slowly approached the sofa again and resumed his sitting position.

 

“Last night she got ambushed by two shitheads working for Wilson Fisk,” Frank began. Matt’s knee buckled with nerves, and he fell to the couch as well, feeling his own heartbeat pick up. He hadn’t had any dealings with Wilson Fisk since after the incident with The Hand. He hoped somehow that his revelation to Karen hadn’t put her in more danger.

 

“She…” Frank stuttered. “She told me about you…”

 

“Did they say this was about him? About Daredevil?” Matt asked. “How did you get involved?”

 

“Was keeping tabs on him.”

 

“And what the hell would he want with Karen? Is this about Union Allied? Does he know that she’s involved with Daredevil?”

 

 

Matt could sense the blood in Frank flushing; he could see it building up beneath the skin on his cheeks.

 

“Not that he was lettin’ on…” Frank rasped. Frank began to writhe uncomfortably in his seat. He cleared his throat loudly, tilting his head to look in Matt’s direction, though not directly at him.

 

“You gotta know,” Frank began. “You gotta understand… if it were anybody else, I woulda’ just forgotten about you completely and left you on your way to doin’ whatever do-gooder, boy scout shit it is that you’re doin’, Red…”

 

Frank turned away again and ran his hands anxiously through his hair. Matt leaned into him, utterly confused.

 

“What do you mean Frank?” Matt asked. More frustratedly, “Is Karen okay?”

 

 

Unable to keep himself still, Frank rose again and paced himself towards the window, palms still planted at the top of his head.

 

“She will be,” Frank insisted. “But she may need both of us.”

 

Of course Matt could never argue with the notion of protecting Karen, but still he found himself forcing a breathy chuckled.

 

“Both of us?” Matt laughed. “You broke into my apartment to ask me for help?”

 

“Fisk couldn’t get her this time, what makes you think he won’t pull out all the stops to finish the job? He knows I’m with her now. Might bring out every piece of shit under his belt.”

 

“You want the two of us to work together?” Matt shook his head as he continued laughing. “You know I don’t like to play your kind of game, Frank. That’s not going to work. If Karen needs help, I will help her myself, but there’s no way I’ll be doing it with you.”

 

 

Frank turned back from the window, and Matt could feel every ounce of Frank’s energy burning, radiating in his direction. Frank took two creaking steps forwards and spoke.

 

“Yeah, figured you might say that.” Frank walked back to the couch and resumed his seat. “So I got a deal for ya’.”

 

“No, no, no, Frank,” Matt exclaimed, springing up off the sofa and walking away from Frank. “I will not make a deal with you. I will help Karen no matter what, but I will do it myself.”

 

“If you work with me on this, you put your over-inflated bullshit morality clause on the back burner ‘til we can get this done, I will leave New York City and never come back. Get outta your hair forever. No more.”

 

 

Matt had begun to walk over to his front door to open it and see Frank outside, but after his ultimatum, he stopped dead in his tracks. He turned back down the hallway tentatively.

 

“What are you saying?” he called.

 

Frank rose of the couch once more and walked towards the hallway, until Matt could feel his aura staring directly over at him again.

 

“You heard me, Red,” Frank insisted.

 

“Leave Hell’s Kitchen forever?” Matt reiterated.

 

“Leave the whole damn borough, entire goddamn city. You won’t ever have to worry about me pickin’ up after me again. Just work with me on this one.”

 

Matt wrinkled his right brow, even more flustered than he had been before.

 

“You…” Matt began. “You would do that… just so we can help Karen?”

 

“I would sit my ass on the first flight back to the desert with a smile on my face for Karen Page.”

 

“Wh…”

 

 

Matt took a step back, unsure of what exactly the two men were beginning to talk about. Matt remembered an incident a short while back when Daredevil was too in late in reaching a massive Colombian drug deal, where he was met with a slew of dead bodies and small tokens he’d begun to interpret as Frank Castle’s new calling card, a penny and a dime, one laid on top of the other. He had never approved of Frank’s M.O. He hated it, despised it with every fiber in his body. The prospect of never having to deal with Frank’s scraps again was tempting. It however did not shed any more light on what Frank was proposing.

 

“Why are you doing this?” Matt whispered.

 

It was a simple question, but the two men stood facing one another in complete silence for an uncomfortably long time. Matt could here the saliva and phlegm clearing as he began to speak. The cells in his body seemed to rush faster and slow themselves at the same time.

 

“Same reason as you.”

 

 

Matt’s anger manifested into a cynical laugh once again.

“Oh no, no, no, Frank, you do not… you have no idea what the relationship between Karen and I is like. I… I… I can’t believe you would even WANT to get involved with this, Frank. You don’t even know Karen!”

 

Frank chuckled under his breath and paced towards Matt.

"Yeah," he began. "Yeah, you may be right, a little bit."

He continued walking, the smile in his voice fading, everything inside him stalling and he inhaled to speak again.

"Look, Red, I'm not here askin' for you and me to be Batman and Robbin runnin' around all the goddam city, solvin' puzzles and riddles and shit. Karen's gonna need back-up, and you're the only guy I know who's... right, I guess. A good guy."

"Not the only one," Matt answered, feeling somewhat as if he was interrupting. "There are more heroes in this city than you know. A lot of people who wanna do the right thing, give this city the justice it needs. That the world needs."

"Well you're the only guy in this city who understands how much the world needs Karen."

 

There came another tense silence between the two, no floorboards creaking under Frank's boots, nor rushing from either man's insides. Matt was mulling several thoughts over in his mind. What did Fisk have on Karen? Was she in as much danger as Frank was leading on? What was the root of this strange connection Frank seemed to have with Karen? At the forefront however, Matt questioned if the answers were worth swallowing his pride to help Frank.

 

"Where is she now?" Matt asked.

"My apartment," Frank grunted, shrugging his shoulder. "I guess you can call it that."

Matt scoffed. "You think she's safe there?"

Frank straightened his posture defensively.

"No. I don't think she's safe anywhere near me, no way in hell. I'm probably the last thing she deserves to happen to her now."

"Then why do it?" Matt asked.

 

"Don't..." Frank began. His shoulders pulled back and Matt could hear an acidic gurgle lurching in Frank's stomach. "You gonna make me say it?"

 

"Look," Matt answered, defeatedly scarping his hand along the back of his neck. "I'll help you. I'll help her, more aptly, but on one further condition. You leave the city, no more traces of you anywhere near Hell's Kitchen ever again, and nobody dies. I mean nobody, Frank."

As Matt suspected, Frank's body tense and he took a step forward, his lungs humming with imminent disapproval, which Matt was ready to counter.

"Back to the desert with a smile on your face, right?"

Like an angry dog at a sharp command to heel, Frank stopped, grunting low in his belly. "These aren't gonna be easy guys, Red," Frank said. "These aren't guys who're gonna stop, the one's he'll send."

"You want my help," Matt challenged. "We're gonna play by my rules this time. We do this together, you leave, and no one dies."

 

Frank began to charge towards Matt, and Matt braced himself for a hit, but instead he felt the hot breeze brush passed him and Frank headed towards the front door, throwing it open.

"Fine," Frank confirmed. "Nobody dies. I'm not gunna promise they won't get the life almost beaten out of them if they touch Karen, though. Almost."

Frank ascended the stairs to the roof as Matt looked on his direction, the clanging of the metal shaking the walls.

"Frank," Matt called up to him one last time. "How exactly did you get in here?"

Frank raised his right hand, wagging his index and middle finger once tightly in the air.

"Semper Fi," he yelled, and then he was out of sight.


End file.
